The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1887-07-20
Who Built the House !

The house was In pond. People
passed along the road in full sight of it,
but never saw it. Boys came and
caught frogs and chased turtles and
captured blood-suckers, but did not no.
tice it, In plain sight it was, not
twenty feet from the shore. The roof
was covered with thatch of rushes to
keep out the rain. Within there was
one room, cosy bedroom, with bed
of dried grass as soft as down. The
walls were of mud. There were no
pictures hanging on them, nor were
there stove, chair, table or dish in the
mansion. There were no windows;
there was no chimney; and the door
the only door was under water. This
house had a very wet cellar; in fact it
was always full of water. The ducks
often swan close to the house, plunging
their broad bills deep into the mud, and
sometimes diving out of sight, but they
never tried to enter. The frogs sat on
the large lily leaves near by and croaked
long and loud, but not one went in. The
turtles sometimes climbed to the roof
to sun themselves, but they never went
inside. The meadow mice had little
houses of their own and laid no claim
to this. No one of these pond people
claimed it. Who, then, was the owner?
Who built the house? One day one of
the boys discovered the house. AT first
he thought it was an old bushel basket
upside down, but as he looked more
carefully he saw that somebody or
something must have built it right
where it was. He wondered when it
was done and who did it, He lived
close to the pond and could see the
whole of it from his chamber window,
but he had never seen this building be-
fore. Almost every day after school he
played in the old field near the pond,
and yet he had never noticed the
builder He made up his mind to ex-
anime it carefully, and, if possible,
solve the mystery that surrounded it.
The mud and water were so deep that
he dared not wade out, and he had no
boat. How should he reach the little
mud island on the edge of which it
stood? After thinking some time he
went to the lumber pile and took sew
eral boards and brought them to the
shore. These he laid across the tus-
socks of pond grass till he had bridge
leading right up to the curious building.
1t was very narrow and exceedingly
shaky bridge. 1t bent and tipped as
the boy stepped upon it. In his hand
he held long stick, which he thrust
down into the mud to steady himself.
In this way he sidled along, carefully
balancing, step by step, till he was almost
there. Once he stuck the stick so far
down that he had to give quite hard
pull in drawing it out, and when il did
come he almost tipped over backward.
Step by step he moved slowly on, and
at last reached the house. Once there,
he examined it with a great deal of
wonder-it was so strongly made, so
nicely matched, so perfectly rounded.
With his stick he raped gently on the
roof. There was rustic, a plunge,
and something darted through the
water and was gone. So quick and IN
expected were the motions that the boy
could not decide whether it was a fish
or an animal. AS he examined the
dwelling, he saw leading from the
underwater door pathway in the soft
mud on the bottom of the pond. Fol-
lowing it with his eyes, he noticed that
it lead far out into the deep water. He
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have longer look at the stranger. For
several days he watched but saw moth
ing unusual. AT last, one evening just
at twilight, he saw swimming slowly up
the pathway its nose barely showing
above the water, brown animal.
Hardly daring to move for fear of
frightening it, he stole forward to get a
good long look. Nearer and nearer
swan the animal to the water-cottage,
till, diving through the doorway,
it disappeared. This, then, was the
owner, the builder of the queer little
mud house, with its roof of rushes
and its cellar full of water. So it was
not the ducks, the mice, the turtles nor
the frogs that built the house, but the
big brown muskrat. AS the boy went
home he said to himself, 90 am glad l
watched and waited till | found what
it was. 1t pays to keep ones eyes
/ - SaJonfoI